The present invention relates to a folding and gluing machine designed for package production.
Such a machine is used to make of a blank, previously produced by means of a cutting and creasing press, a flat folded box which, subsequently, i.e. when it is going to be utilized, will only have to be set up to its final shape. To this aim and as illustrated by a showing of the prior art in FIG. 1 of the attached drawings, such a machine is to comprise, for instance:
a feeding section A destined to take up the blanks or sheets F batchwise and to center the sheets successively as they are individually taken from the batch with regard to the central axis of the machine; PA1 a prefolding section B; PA1 a gluing section C; PA1 a folding section D; and PA1 a delivery section E. PA1 it encumbers the accessibility to the inner machine area notwithstanding the fact that the operator is frequently compelled to reach in for manually checking and setting processing operations, and PA1 it has no noise absorbing effect, i.e. it does not prevent the emission of noise produced by the machine in operation. PA1 encumbers as little as possible the inspection of the inner machine area at stand-still or while operating, PA1 obstructs as little as possible the accessibility to the inner machine area during its operation, PA1 significantly reduces the machine noise to which the operator is exposed.
FIG. 1 of the attached drawing shows schematically, the successive stages of a sheet F as it travels through the sections A to E.
As the present invention has no direct relationship with the means used for the processing of the sheet F in the various sections A to E, these means have been left away from FIG. 1, the folding and gluing machine being thus represented only by its lateral walls situated on the operator's side and opposite.
The recent development of such machines has more and more brought about the adoption of walls on the operator's side for arranging or integrating increasingly complicated and cumbersome means for automatization and control of the numerous operations mentioned above. For this reason, these walls are made of a plate P.sub.1 of relatively great thickness making up the inner side, i.e. the one situated on the machine's side, of the wall and extending throughout the whole machine length which may reach up to 25 m. This plate P.sub.1, jointly used with an identical plate P.sub.2 situated on the side opposite the operator's, makes up the machine frame. The maximum height of these plates up to now has been limited to about 1.50 m so as to enable the machine operator to watch the machine throughout its width by looking over the top of the plates. For rendering the inspection even easier, the plate P.sub.1 is provided with rectangular apertures O.sub.1 to O.sub.6 generally open upwardly and configuring among themselves the full parts designated as vertical supports. A lower edge of the apertures O.sub.1 to O.sub.6 is situated at about 80 cm from the floor in order to prevent or obstruct the access to the inner machine area for safety reasons. The entire outer side of the plate P.sub.1 is covered up with numerous hollow panels or coffers E.sub.1 to E.sub.9 of various sizes. These hollow panels E.sub. 1 to E.sub.9 shaped so as to enclose the periphery of the plate P.sub.1, make up with the plate P.sub.1 a kind of cabinet allowing to house therein mechanical, electric and electronic drive transmission and/or control devices of the machine. Such a wall as situated on the operator's side according to prior art has, however, essentially two drawbacks, i.e.:
Attention should also be drawn to the fact that at a prior stage, the proposition has been put forth with a view to complying with safety requirements to equip such a machine with a detecting devices provided with light beam emitters/receivers, or else with belts including detectors arranged all along the machine for detecting any accidental or non-accidental penetration of a human being in the inner machine area and for stopping the latter automatically. Moreover, in addition to excessively quick wear and tear of the belt and excessive of the light beam detectors to dust, these detecting devices also have the drawback of too easily causing uncontrolled machine stops, i.e. when there is no necessity whatsoever, and thereby causing a drop in production. In addition, there is no noise absorbing or reducing effect offered by the panels or frame of the machine.